- My Primary Tutor
5 great sites to help your primary-age child learn to read
This week marks not one but two social media holidays to do with books - Monday 6th September is Read A Book Day and Wednesday the 8th is Literacy Day.
At My Primary Tutor, we know how important early reading is - not only for children's academic careers; reading for pleasure is also an indicator of happiness as an adult! We wrote about it here in our blog on the importance of early literacy.
This week, then, we decided to share our top five sites which provide great, free resources for helping your child to read - whether they're just starting out, or years into their reading journey.
BookTrust
BookTrust are amazing. They do tonnes of very important research which helps teachers, tutors and parents to know how best to engage with and teach children how to read - not only that but they have some fab resources that we love!
Our favourite by far is the book finder. When you're struggling for a book to read, or a birthday present, this tool is GOLD. You pop in the child's age (and gender if you want), the type of book you think they'd like and presto! You are given a huge list of books that match the description.
The Hometime Hub is similarly brilliant - book recommendations, quizzes, competitions, videos...it's such fun to explore!
Oxford Owl
Oxford Owl is the home Oxford Reading Tree, which many parents will recognise as the publishers of those home-reading stalwarts, Biff, Chip and Kipper. Brilliant as they are, the website is even better, with tonnes of free eBooks for your child to take a look at.
Our favourite bit, though, is the Kids' Activities section, which is handily broken down into age ranges, so it's really easy to find an activity for your child to do. On the page for 4-year-olds, for example, there are links to age-appropriate eBooks, counting songs, recipes and printables - all resigned to help your child to practise their reading skills.
Chatterbooks
Chatterbooks is a resource that comes from The Reading Agency, which is similar in it's purview to BookTrust. It has lots and lots of resources created for specific books, or for particular days (such as World Book Day) and as such is really handy for finding extra resources if your child reads a book that they completely fall in love with - allowing them to explore the book in more depth and get more from it than a surface reading would allow.
CBeebies Storytime
The thing we love best about the CBeebies reading app, even more than the rich and varied takes it includes, are the options to be read to or to read by yourself. For children of all ages, but especially younger ones, reading is exhausting - they are forging new neural pathways word by decoded word, and being read to is just as developmentally important as reading for themselves - especially when they've had a busy day at school!
Each story also has interactive elements which children love discovering, and the bedtime stories selection is just fantastic! As ever, the BBC provides incredibly high quality and well thought-out resources.
My Primary Tutor
Ok - this one's more for parents than children, but over the year we have published a large number of blogs about reading, resources and where to find them, so why not take a look through our back-catalogue? The blog about dyslexia awareness is, we feel, particularly important to see.
Reluctant Readers – How to Spot One and What to Do If You've Got One!
5 reasons why sharing stories with our children is of the utmost importance.
5 top tips to help your family to keep reading over the summer!
If you suspect your child may need extra support with their reading, get in touch - we can help you to assess where they are now, and together we can create a plan to get them where they need to be, and to develop a love of reading at the same time! Send Karen an email on myprimarytutor@yahoo.com